CANTO ir. OF GOOD AND EVIL. 159 



The migrant herring steers her myriad bands 

 From seas of ice to visit warmer strands ; 

 Unfathom'd depths and climes unknown explores, 

 And covers with her spawn unmeasured shores. 

 All these, increasing by successive birth, 

 Would each o'erpeople ocean, air, and earth. 



" So human progenies, if unrestrain'd, 

 By climate friended, and by food sustain'd, 370 



O'er seas and soils, prolific hordes! would spread 

 Erelong, and deluge their terraqueous bed; 

 But war, and pestilence, disease, and dearth, 

 Sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth. 

 Thus while new forms reviving tribes acquire 

 Each passing moment, as the old expire; 

 Like insects swarming in the noontide bower, 

 Rise into being, and exist an hour; 

 The births and deaths contend with equal strife, 

 And every pore of Nature teems with Life; 380 



